Assalamu alaikum,These posts by my 'name-sake' (Muhammad Tukur) are actually a-must-read by all of us- more so very useful information that need to be digested and processed by especially members of this forum- could our much-talked get-together be the right forum for analysising these issuse raised?

One could see lots of issues that have been raised, which are seriously bothering us:1. politics,2. religion,3. marital problems, etc, etc.4. economy.

Allah (SWT) ya ciyar da mutanenmu, Kasarmu da Addininmu gaba-amiyn.

Logged

In the Affairs of People Fear Allah (SWT). In the Matters Relating to Allah (SWT) Do not be Afraid of Anybody. Ibn Katthab (RA).

Assalamu alaikum,These posts by my 'name-sake' (Muhammad Tukur) are actually a-must-read by all of us- more so very useful information that need to be digested and processed by especially members of this forum- could our much-talked get-together be the right forum for analysising these issuse raised?

One could see lots of issues that have been raised, which are seriously bothering us:1. politics,2. religion,3. marital problems, etc, etc.4. economy.

Allah (SWT) ya ciyar da mutanenmu, Kasarmu da Addininmu gaba-amiyn.

Weldone Takwara. You have provided a very good insight into the whole topic. These issues need to be discussed and analysed in our forum. A leadership should be provided at all levels to ensure that the interest of the North are defended and projected. Thanks EMTL

The media and the genocide in Jos Written by By Mohammed Haruna, WEDNESDAY, 03 DECEMBER 2008

Most Nigerian media, the newspapers in particular, may have chosen to report it as anything but genocide against the so-called settler community of Jos, the capital of Plateau State, but that was plainly what the authorities in the state set out to achieve last Friday in the wake of the protests that greeted the local government elections in the State the day before.The State's governor, retired Air Commodore David Jonah Jang, had always harboured deep hatred for the Hausa/Fulani who are predominantly Muslim. Jang is not alone among Northern minority Christian leaders who harbour such hatred arising from what they regard as a historical wrong done their forefathers by a colonial system that supported feudal rule in the North.For Jang, this historical wrong took a personal dimension when he was retired in August 1990. This only seemed to have deepened his hatred towards the "hegemonists. "This much was obvious from a long interview he gave The Comet, since rested. The interview was published in its edition of November 12, 2000. Asked by the newspaper early in the interview if he had forgiven those who sacked him, he answered in the affirmative. However, everything he said thereafter betrayed a heart and mind full of venom and vengeance towards those he held responsible.He was, he said, retired without any justification. "IBB (military president, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida)," he said, "kicked me out of the service before his regime came to an end and I don't know why I was kicked out till today and I have met him a few times after that and he has never told me why I was kicked out."Jang was only one of 21 officers that were "kicked out" at the time, the majority of them Hausa/Fulani Muslims. Yet he seemed to have regarded this as a continuation of the historical wrong done his fore-fathers because they were different from those in authority in tongue and faith."Culturally, and all ways of our life", he said, "there is nothing common between us and our friends in the far-North". Then in what was clearly a gross misrepresentation of History, he claimed that Tin from Jos was used to develop Nigeria, presumably to the detriment of its indigenes to which he belongs."Tin, from Plateau State", he said, "was …used for running Nigeria as a whole…Yet somebody has the guts to tell me Sardauna trained me. Could he not have trained me?" Jang conveniently forgot to mention those who laboured to mine the tins. Of course he also forgot to mention the many other natural and agricultural commodities that were used to develop Nigeria.It was the modern day discrimination against his people, he said, which has fuelled the determination of the minority elites like him to carve an identity for those in the Middle-Belt region different from that of the so-called far North.This, he said, was why the Middle-Belt Forum had, among other things, erected sign posts with the inscription "This is the Middle-Belt region" all over the geographical zone it regarded as Middle-Belt. "We want," he said, "to consciensentise our own people to understand that they had their own identity separate from the North."For Jang, the defining character of this identity was religion, specifically Christianity. Asked by The Comet if he accepted the Middle-Belt as coterminous with the North-Central Zone, he said no. "We have already stated what areas we consider the Middle-Belt which are Southern Kebbi, Southern Kaduna, Southern Borno, Southern Bauchi, Southern Gombe, Adamawa, Taraba, Benue, Plateau, Nasarawa, Kogi, the Federal Capital Territory, Kwara and Niger." These areas are either predominantly Christian or have significant Christian population.The latest manifestation of his hatred for the Hausa Muslim emerged only last month when a delegation led by Lt-General T.Y. Danjuma met the Northern Governors Forum to submit the report of a successful seminar organised by Leadership on how to move the North forward out of its ingrained poverty and backwardness. The team was given 25 minutes to brief the Forum. Former civilian governor of Kano State, Alhaji Abubakar Rimi, was to brief it on human resource development and education, while Dr. Audu Ogbe, a former PDP chairman and a large scale farmer, was to give a briefing on agriculture, the region's mainstay. Finally, Malam Abba Kyari, former managing director of the United Bank for Africa, was to brief the Forum on micro-banking.Before they could start, Jang launched a tirade against the team on why no one would want to invest in the North as long as people go about burning churches. Predictably the team was taken aback. Danjuma had to literally shut him up for waiving a hatchet that most people in the region have been trying hard to bury. Back in 1986 when Jang was the military governor of Benue State, he had a show-down with the State's civil servants. He had unilaterally slashed their allowances, pleading lack of funds. The civil servants threatened to go on strike if he did not rescind the cuts. The press reported him as describing himself as a locomotive that was ready to "crush any obstacles" in his path if they carried out their threat.They did, but inexplicably, Jang beat a retreat by rescinding the cuts. Twenty two years on last Friday, the locomotive Jang, now out of uniform and in mufti as the governor of his native Plateau State, felt no compunction in crushing what he saw as obstacles between him and his open agenda of riding the Middle-Belt in general, Plateau and its capital, Jos, in particular, of its so-called settler elements.The opportunity was, of course, the local government elections of last Thursday. All indications were that the ruling PDP was heading for a landslide defeat in Jos North Local Government to the opposition ANPP when the State Electoral Commission shifted the venue of collating the results out of the Secretariat to a location outside Jos. It did so twice before it finally announced that PDP had won on Friday morning.Predictably, the ANPP protested. This provided Jang the opportunity he had always wanted to deal with the so-called settler community. As had been the case in previous riots in 2001 and 2004, the authorities claimed that the opposition had imported armed thugs from neighbouring states and from as far away as Niger Republic and Chad.So far, they have not provided evidence to support their claims. Yet, as usual, the majority of the Nigerian media, in whose eyes the Hausa/Fulani are always the villains of the piece, have sheepishly echoed these claims.Thisday on Sunday, (November 30, 2008), for example, said it "gathered that security operatives yesterday intercepted about 500 men armed with weapons on their way to Jos. Thisday could not however, verify the figure." Thisday's insinuation was obvious; it believed the settler-community did import armed thugs, only it couldn't verify how many they were.Tribune was worse. Without any equivocation it claimed the so-called settler community were the aggressors. Its edition of December 1 carried the banner headline "Plateau poll crisis latest: People still trapped in Churches." Then it followed with two riders, one about the Christian Association of Nigeria calling for a 3-day prayer and fasting, the other about the Action Congress calling for cancellation of the election.The newspaper quoted the chairman of the Plateau State Chapter of CAN, Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama, as saying Churches and Christian property were attacked and that the attacks themselves were "carefully planned and executed." No where in its entire report was there any word about the other side of the story.Yet the newspaper itself, like almost all the other newspapers carried pictures of the charred remains of over 1000 vehicles at a second-hand car depot burnt along Zaria Road on the outskirts of the town. Not surprisingly, most newspapers chose not to identify the owner.The owner, Alhaji Haruna Musa Adamu, was lucky he escaped alive. Several children in at least two Islamiya schools in the town were not so lucky; they were burnt alive. Most newspapers did not think this outrage was worth a mention.By the time the dust settled on Sunday, the dead among the Hausa had reached over 400, according to the Red Cross and some of the global media like the BBC, the VOA and Deutche Welle. By Tuesday you would still search in vain in our newspapers for the scale of killings in Jos that was carried on in the name of religion and tribe.Clearly, what has informed the editorial judgement of most of these newspapers is their prejudice against the "Hausa". The reports were also clearly informed by the assumption that the so-called settler community have no right to aspire to political leadership outside their ancestral homes. This explains why there were no reports about the local government elections themselves.Yet, only last month, following President-elect Barak Obama's victory in America's presidential elections, these same newspapers were pontificating about the beauty of how a first generation American can run for the country's presidency.In the words of Tribune on November 4, the very day of America's presidential election, "The fact that a first generation American, who is the son of a Kenyan father and an American woman is running for the American presidency – the most powerful office in the world – is a great credit to the American system."Yet in the eyes of Tribune and others like it that carried on about how wonderful America is as a democracy, there was nothing wrong with massacring people for no worse crime than wanting to chose who they believe should be the chairman of a local government where they are in the majority.Nigeria is of course, not America. In any case it has taken America more than two centuries for a half-black to become its president. Even then that does not mean the end of racism in the country.However, even though Nigeria is not America, we cannot hope to end the ethnic and religious bigotry that has bedevilled our politics if our media persist in telling only one side of a story.In May 1992 when the Zangon Kataf ethno-religious riots broke out following the earlier one in February, most of the media portrayed it as a one-sided pre-meditated genocide against Christians in Kaduna. Among the newsmagazines, Citizen which I managed, stood out almost alone in reporting both sides of the story. In our edition of May 25, we gave a graphic account of how it all started in Zangon-Kataf on a Friday and how it spilled over into Kaduna the following Sunday. We reported how a "well armed Kataf army" set upon the "Hausa" community in Kataf on Friday and how the following Sunday "a young Hausa mob and their allies armed ... with knives, clubs, cutlasses and Dane guns ... began to hunt down "Katafawas", in Kaduna and Zaria, among other places.We interviewed community and religious leaders of both sides and quoted them extensively in our report. Yet the Lagos based Media Review, which is a media watchdog, singled us out for attack as telling only one side of the story. We could as well have titled our cover story "Zangon-Kataf crisis: The Hausa view point", said the magazine.Our crime, as I said in my reaction to its editor-in-chief, my good friend, Lanre Idowu, seemed to be that we refused to join others in telling only the Christian side of the story.Nothing appears to have changed since then.

Holly molly, this is a classical text-book example of putting a square peg in a round hole, Nigeria style! Nigeria can never seem to get its act right? Imagine the indefatigable NAFDAC chairwoman, Iron Lady Professor (Dr) Dora Akunyili being deployed to a mere glorified back-room ministry of Information and Communication? For what purpose, Icheoku may ask? Of all the vital ministries in Nigeria, some of them in epileptic dyspnea, needing very urgent and intrusive emergency attention; and the re-invigoration of new blood, it was only the Information and Communications ministry that the Northern Oligarchs deemed a fit and proper cage to confine Dora Akunyili? Why did she even accept the position or will she die of starvation if she had said to President Umaru Yar'Adua, "thanks, but no, thanks? The problem militating against Nigeria's rise to greatness is that mediocrities are always bestowed with the responsibility of running vital organs of the government which they are very much ill-equipped and ill-prepared to manage; while proven go-getters are usually relegated to inconsequential ministries because they came from the wrong geographical real-estate in Nigeria? Is anyone out there still wondering why the Nigeria-project has stalled all these years since her independence from Britain in 1960? Just take a cursory look at the ministerial assignments handed down today by President Umaru Yar'Adua of Nigeria and now tell Icheoku, which one of these mallams has any proven record of achievement to head their assigned ministry and a heavy-weight performer like Dora Akunyili is given an ordinary Information Ministry? Tomorrow, it is going to be the same result - a failed, comatose ministry on life-support and a Nigeria which still crawls since her birth. Icheoku concludes that Northern Nigeria is the bane of Nigeria! With the successful antecedent of Professor Dora Akuniyili at NAFDAC, many a Nigerian thought that she will be deployed to the proven ground-zero of Nigeria, the POWER ministry; to go and wake up the slumbering, comatose never-expect-power-always ministry. President Umaru Yar'Adua is a talker but not a doer as he always disappoints Nigerians whenever it is time for him to walk his talk or show Nigerians, his seriousness with all his postulations. Umaru Yar'Adua promised to fight corruption in Nigeria and the first thing he did was to fire the corruption czar, Nuhu Ribadu! Umaru Yar'Adua promised Nigerians the return of the rule of law and the shutting down of ChannelsTV, arresting of e-media bloggers and harassing Independent Newspaper shows his own jaundiced-definition of Umaru Yar'Adua's rule of law? If Umaru Yar'Adau was serious about power emergency, why did he not assign an Amazon-warrior like Professor Dora Akunyili the task of giving Nigerians the ever-elusive power-supply? But no, Umaru Yar'Adua under pressure from fake drugs and goods dealers, simply removed their nemesis from NAFDAC and instead demoted her to a mere back-yard ministry of Information and Communication. May be Umaru Yar'Adua was planning the same Nuhu Ribadu-treatment for Dora, but decided to be more diplomatic about it? What position in the hierarchy of importance, amidst the very urgent needs of Nigerians, does the Information and Communication ministry occupy, that such a talented go-getter as Dora Akunyili, with her much vaunted abilities and capabilities should be muzzled up in such a fill-the-gap ministry? This is a big waste of an invaluable human resource! It is a complete misplacement of an asset. Talk of a complete disregard for proven performance. Umaru Yar'Adua has once again, failed Nigerians and it is about time that Nigerians realize that this sick man from Katsina is merely taking them for a ride - a really, long roller-coaster ride! Icheoku says that Northern Nigeria is continually and with impunity, acting as the lord of the manor in Nigeria. Once again they have added impetus to this assertion by usurping all the key-ministries in the President Umaru Yar'Adua newly re-constituted administration. It is also pertinent to note that the same Northern Nigeria holds the presidency (Umaru Yar'Adua), secretary of government (Mahmud Yayale Ahmed), national security adviser (Aliyu Mohammed), Chief Justice of Nigeria (Idris Legbo Kutigi), president Court of Appeal (Umaru Abdullahi), as well as the senate presidency (David Mark); and one wonders where the very essence of Nigeria's federal character has suddenly disappeared to? And for a complete routing of Nigeria by the North, the North has, in addition, appropriated these very important ministries - defence ministry (Shettima Mustapha), agriculture and water resources ministry (Abba Ruma), national planning (Shamsudeen Usman), works and housing (Hassan Lawal), Federal Capital Territory: FCT (Adamu Aliero), petroleum ministry (Rilwanu Lukman) and Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation (Mike Aondoakaa). Icheoku now asks, what is then left but the crumbles, when all these vital federal government ministries, both in responsibilities and size of budget with antendant employment opportunities and contracts, are aggrandized by just one section out of the three main sections or tripod of Nigeria? This is one case where the silence should no longer be golden and the Oha-na-eze, Afenifere, Niger Delta groups should denounce this fascist north for their wanton disregard for the continued unity of Nigeria. The North is perpetually undermining the unity-fabric of Nigeria by their crass, abashed domination of Nigeria. They do not have even an oil well, yet one of their own has to keep a watchful-eye over the oil-revenue? Where are the people of the Niger Delta, who own the oil lands and appurtenant waters? No, they are damn too "inferior" to oversee the revenue coming from the bowels of their land? This time, the other component parts of Nigeria should speak up and demand for fairness, their continued silence will be interpreted as cowardice of a slave, fearful of his slave-masters! Enough of this bullshit going on in Nigeria! At least they (North) should have waited until their complete mummification and islamization of Nigeria into an Arewa Islamic Republic, before becoming so brazen! If the table were to turn, would they, the North, accept such tacit exclusion? It is simply speaking, an abominable greed of the North, by the North and for the North! Posted by EBEKUO at 9:00:00 PM Labels: hausa fulani strikes again

REVEALED? SANUSI CBN acting to orders in AREWA northern agenda – VanguardSHOCKING REVELATION: Sanusi may not be acting in our interest after all. Chances are that he and Waziri of the EFCC are only protecting northern interest and are being used as tools to carry out the northern agenda since Soludo removed the Arabic language from the Naira. Please read on:

Vanguard on 23 March 2009, did a world exclusive on alleged plot by a group of individuals to take over five banks in the country.

Two weeks ago, the new Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi sacked the chief executives and boards of five banks, therefore confirming our scoop of March 23.

The story:ANTI-CONSOLIDATION forces have regrouped with the hope of dismantling the structures and forcing a takeover of the top five banks in the country, Vanguard can now reveal. The grand plan by the group is to cause panic and uncertainty in the industry and make the target banks look unsafe for depositors

Meantime, indications emerged yesterday that the Federal Government may announce the names of a new Governor of the Central Bank (CBN) and the Auditor-General of the Federation (AGF) in April just a few weeks before the tenure of the incumbents run out.

However, the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has expressed concern over what it described as the rapidly deteriorating liquidity situation in the banking industry and tasked the Central Bank (CBN) to make public information on causes of the development as well as the scale of the crisis.

The Exclusive report on the present banking crisis shown here as published by VANGUARD March 23, 2009.

Northern Agenda report on cbn’s northern agenda revealed Vanguard investigations revealed that the aim of the anti-consolidation forces is to cause loss of public confidence in the banking industry and compel the Federal Government to move in by injecting funds. Further, they ultimately plan to instigate government to take equity holdings in the targeted banks.

Vanguard gathered that the group at work is made up of former bank owners who lost out during the consolidation exercise, a powerful clique in the present government, and some aggrieved persons in three of the six geopolitical zones in the country who felt left out in the consolidation exercise.

Presidency sources disclosed that those who felt left out in the consolidation exercise are up in arms to recoup what they felt they lost during Obasanjo years.

Part of the plans hatched by the group is to ensure that the incumbent Governor of the Central Bank, Professor Chukwuma Soludo, does not get a second term. The plan is also to ensure that whatever gains consolidation recorded are discredited.

This, it was learnt, was meant to force the President to act quickly in the matter of appointment of a successor to Soludo as they anticipate that the president’s slow move may scuttle their dreams and cause the renewal of Soludo’s re-appointment for a second term.

The group’s second game plan is to make Nigerian banks look unsafe in the eye of the banking public. Part of the game is to spread rumours that some banks are unsound and are on the verge of collapse. They send out text messages to individuals and account holders passing wrong information on their target banks. At the moment, the group’s target is one of the high-flying new generation banks where they have sent out several messages.

New CBN Gov, Auditor-General to emerge AprilThe tenure of the CBN Governor, Professor Chukwuma Soludo and Auditor-General of the Federation, Mr. O. R. Ejenavi from Delta State will lapse in May 2009.

Naming nominees for the top jobs, according to a presidency source, will afford the Senate ample opportunity to work on them before they assume office.

While Soludo will complete his first term in office as CBN governor by May 29, Ejenavi will be due for retirement on age grounds on May 18.

However, among those being considered for the position of CBN governor include the Minister of National Planning, Dr Shamsuddeen Usman from Kano, who was a former Finance minister and deputy governor at the apex bank; another former CBN deputy governor, Obadiah Mailafia from Nassarawa, Mallam Isa Hayatudeen from Borno, a former managing director of FSB International Bank, incumbent Managing Director of First Bank, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, also from Kano, and Mallam Falalu Bello from Kaduna, Managing Director, Unity Bank.

But the most touted name so far is that of Mallam Isa Yuguda, the Bauchi State governor who won election on the platform of the All Nigeria peoples Party, ANPP, but defected to the ruling PDP last week. Yuguda is also an in-law of President Umaru Yar’Adua. Yuguda was also a former Managing Director of Inland Bank, a legacy bank in post-consolidation FinBank.

It was also gathered that strict obedience to civil service rules will be observed in the appointment of a new Auditor General for the Federation going by the constitutional provision.

Section 86 Subsection 1 of the 1999 constitution states: “the Auditor-General for the Federation shall be appointed by the President on the recommendation of the Federal Civil Service Commission, subject to the confirmation of the Senate.”

That of the CBN may be determined by other factors, mostly political considerations which are at the pleasure of the President without recourse to the commission.

The most senior director in the office of the Auditor-General currently is Mr. Ogunsina G.F from Ekiti State who may be appointed unless there is political maneuvering. Having been a director since 2004, it may not be smooth sailing for Ogunsina because, there is another senior civil servant Mr. Osonuga T. A. from Ogun State who was promoted a director in 2007 and is being propelled by other forces to occupy the office.

It’s unfortunate top 5 banks are targeted, says officialA CBN official who spoke on condition of anonymity said that it is unfortunate that top five banks are the target. The banks, he said, are sound. The CBN had mistaken in the past the ongoing move as de-marketing by competitors in the banking industry, saying it is unhealthy competition.

The group is using this means to make depositors panic and undertake massive withdrawal of funds from the targeted banks in an attempt to cause liquidity problem in the bank. In that state they hope to cause a take over by the government which may buy a stake in the bank and later sell to members of the privileged group who may be appointed in the interim into the board of the banks.

Arewa worries over liquidity problemHowever, the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) expressed concern over what it described as the rapidly deteriorating liquidity situation in the banking industry and tasked the Central Bank (CBN) to inform the people the cause of the development as well as the scale of the crisis.

ACF said that the commercial banks must have obviously lent too much money to people who either invested them in buying stocks or in the importation of petroleum products in the country, but are unable to repay such loans.

A statement signed by the National Publicity Secretary of the Forum, Mr. Anthony Sani however blamed the CBN for enquiring “into the volume of the so-called toxic assets of the commercial banks while refusing to tell Nigerians how or why in the first place, the banks found themselves in trouble.

The statement reads “The Working Committee of the National Executive Council of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) held its meeting at its national headquarters in Kaduna on Tuesday, the 17th of March 2009. In attendance were all National officers of the ACF drawn from the 19 northern states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). General IBM Haruna, the Chairman presided.

“Among other things, the meeting reviewed and discussed a number of issues and other troubling developments in the country. At the end, it resolved to issue the following statement.

“The ACF deliberated on the rapidly deteriorating liquidity situation in the banking industry and observed that Nigerians are feeling increasingly frustrated by the failure of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to disclose the true the true nature and the scale of the crisis.

“Even members of the National Assembly, despite their best efforts, have been unable to get to the truth of the matter.According to Arewa consultative forum “All that seem obvious is that our commercial banks had lent out too much money to too many people who had invested them in stocks or petroleum importation but who are now unable to pay back. Beyond that, the public has no clear idea as how or why the loans were given and on what terms.”

Whoever read or heard the song of late Malam Sa'ad Zungur entitled: Mulakiya, will believe that the word "Northern Nigeria", commonly known as Arewa is terribly shaking...<http://allafrica.com/stories/201009270532.html>

Flood victims sleep by roadsides in northern NigeriaAFPWhatever the cause, the disaster has added to flood misery that had alreadyhit large areas of the north of Africa's most populous nation. ...<http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iguvcTEOiu7FW6ptKz_UKMeKNOgQ?docId=CNG.df9e6a188a034ac23300ab0760b91861.8f1>